Yeah, that's the style. With the odd exception (of things usually made with American sales in mind) video was the preferred means of doing Brit TV into the '90's. The original Quatermass' were shot on tape as well but no longer look it due to the original masters no longer existing and the telecini recording being all that's left.

Neverwhere probably marks the tipping point in changing attitudes as the tape look, which would have been perfectly acceptable a few years earlier, was ruthlessly mocked by every critic and probably helped kill it more than anything.

My dad is a big fan of Hammer films (and so am I BTW) and as expressed an interest in seeing the orginal Quatermass TV shows.

BTW I just bought amazon the Rashomon Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. After hearing about this movie for years I decided to see if it's as good as The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and Kagmusha, The Shadow Warriors are.

Thanks to the world's smallest Wal-Mart wanting to expand and the local f.y.e. outlet being in the way and not wanting to move(or, more likely, not wanting to pay the local mall's inflated rental costs anymore), I picked up at their going out of business sale the 70th Anniversary Edition of Citizen Kane, a used copy of the original Fright Night, and a set of remastered Max Fleischer Superman cartoons.

As a professional tanuki (I'm a Japanese mythological animal, and a good luck charm), I have an alarm clock built into me somewhere. I also look like a stuffed animal. And you thought your life was tough......

As I was getting a bit HeavyArms I'm just going to feedback on what I've recently watched/am watching that's made an impression.

Electra Glide in Blue: Very odd, very interesting little film. Not entirely sure if it was actually any good, but it was enjoyable to watch, very quirky. Did see the ending

SPOILER! (select to read)which cribbed far too much from Easy Rider, just inverted

coming from quite an early stage, though.

Scars of Dracula: Just about justified my memory of it as one of the better Hammer Draculas, despite the bad use of a good cast (have Waterman as the roguish bloke! Troughton as the priest!). The stripped down "**** Bram Stoker, I'm Jimmy Sangster" first one is still the best, mind, though the Lee-less Brides was a lot better than I remembered.

Wages of Fear: Genuinely superb. The suspense stuff was great, as tense as Diabolique, if not more so. What really won out was the utterly horrible people filling the film from top to bottom and Clouzot's ability to show what utter twats people doing heroic-sounding stuff can be.

Return of the Magnificent Seven: Proof that utterly pointless sequels are nothing new; even Yul Brynner isn't that interesting and he usually gives his all even in complete shit. Note for Hollywood: Steve McQueen and Robert "Who?" Fuller are not interchangable.

Watched Taken for the first time. Can't believe I went this long without watching it. It come across as something that was written for someone like Schwarzenegger then accidentally shot with real actors. A great film, right up my street.
And now when every maker in a room starts writing the "I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want" not verbatim, I can legitimately join in and just repeat what everyone else is saying like I do with football.

Still alive, I'm just bad at keeping up with forums.
You can read my articles and reviews at gintendo.co.uk but I wouldn't bother if I were you.

Picked up The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 on Blu-Ray, and a double Blu-Ray feature of Hudson Hawk and Hollywood Homicide.

As a professional tanuki (I'm a Japanese mythological animal, and a good luck charm), I have an alarm clock built into me somewhere. I also look like a stuffed animal. And you thought your life was tough......

Quatermass Experiment: Not bad, not bad at all - well-made and well-directed, certainly justifies its' existence by generally being an improvement over what is left of the TV version. One small problem is the weird continuity glitch that sees Quatermass completely removed from the film in favour of a heavy from a Capone-era gangster film. 3/5

(talking of vaguely terrible film adaptations, how come the Amicus Dalek films are so hard to find on disc? Looked for them on a whim and they cost more than proper films... used to be you couldn't spit without hitting them on VHS)

The Blue Max: Stunning aerial sequences and a decent plot all for nothing due to the bizarre decision to cast George Peppard and Ursula Andress instead of, y'know, actors. Peppard in particular has exactly the same facial expression throughout the entire film. 2/5

The Face of Fu Manchu: The first one of the Lee/HAT films and it's rather good; nice pulpy fun with a great little car chase and some hilariously overlong fistfights thrown in. Probably cost more than the other four put together. 4/5

The Big Red One: Overly episodic and far too long - some bits are super (especially the end segment), some have been in every other war film ever before and since (whaddya know, shooting people brings out a range of conflicting emotions depending on a person's character! I LEARNDED SOMETHING TODAY!). Lee Marvin's great in it and there's a certain entertainment in Mark Hamill being so far out of his depth it looks like he's about to call R2D2 to help him at any moment. 3/5

Quatermass Experiment: Not bad, not bad at all - well-made and well-directed, certainly justifies its' existence by generally being an improvement over what is left of the TV version. One small problem is the weird continuity glitch that sees Quatermass completely removed from the film in favour of a heavy from a Capone-era gangster film. 3/5

I don't know, though And The Pit pulls it off better I do think the movies suffer from the fact that, more location filming aside, they don't look that much more lush than the telly versions. Even what's left of Experiment has that fantastic half demolished house set that's more impressive than anything in Xperiment.

It's a shame there's not a really good "Complete" version of the first story. Though the BBC4 version does come close it's undone both by Jason Fleming being fairly poor casting (generally solid stoic actor, but totally wrong for Quatermass) and the budget being so low they couldn't manage a church for the final meaning a lot of the intended symbolism gets lost.

Mind, Mark Gattis is surprisingly good in it, he does the arc camp thing so much it's surprising to see him play so well against type as a depressive drunk.

Quote:

(talking of vaguely terrible film adaptations, how come the Amicus Dalek films are so hard to find on disc? Looked for them on a whim and they cost more than proper films... used to be you couldn't spit without hitting them on VHS)

I'm surprised at that considering they've been released at least three times on disc (though IIRC they all have some sort of problem). Remind me when the Blu Rays come out and we may come to some sort of deal over my DVD's. If you can cope with the credits of Invasion Earth being in the wrong place.

Might take you up on that, as I think getting the Optimum 2-in-1 would just piss me off (if I don't have the 'right' covers I'll just download).

Dunno, I think the first two TV Quatermass serials stand up well considering the limitations and justify their place in things, but I feel the film (not seen II for a long time so am holding back judgement) being a bit more polished helps, and TBH didn't think Tate was that good in the lead anyway; I'd have killed for the first two to have been remade with Morell at the same time as either version of Pit. Keir's not quite right either but does have a good go; would have liked to have seen Cushing (one of the most wasted actors of all time) circa 68 in the films too. Most of them have been better than John Mills, though, far too famous for that sort of thing.

I suppose with the first one it is hard to compare when we'll never know for sure how well the ending worked on the TV version- Was the conviction of the actors enough to overcome the washing up glove stuck through a photo nature of the monster? Kneal used to mock it mercilessly, but he did the same with the end of the second one (to the point he blocked its release on video) and that doesn't look so bad.

Agreed Tate was more adequate than exceptional (though again, who knows how he might have hit his stride as the weeks went on?) but to be better than the film chap he didn't need to be. The fellow who filled in at the last second for Tate after his death in II never really had a chance.

Morell was fantastic, almost a different character (much more proto-Doctor than his two more straight laced predecessors, the scenes between him and Breen are everything the Pertwee era should have been. Ironically one of the lost Experiment episodes apparently has the Professor use a Police Box...) but pitched perfectly.

The idea of remakes with him in is delicious, they redid 1984 again a few years after the original live performance (though I can't recall now if Cushing was in both) so presumably it wasn't uncommon, especially as Quatermass seems to have been fairly well respected by the beeb (there's a decent amount of money thrown at the Pit, UK genre TV wouldn't look consistently that good until well into the 70's).

Then again, I believe he turned down the film despite doing a few Hammers, so the interest may not have been there. In terms of regulars at the studio, as obvious as it may be, I can see Chris Lee having a great time in a Devil Rides Out "I'M NOT THE BADDY WHOOOOO" way.

Yeh, apparently Morell didn't see the point in playing the character more than once, which I suppose you have to respect. IIRC Pit was one of the most expensive things the Beeb had done at the time so I suspect that probably meant remaking the other two to the same standard was just prohibitively expensive.

It is just such a shame that there's literally no chance of the first one ever showing up; with Who there's always a slight chance for every episode bar Feast even if they're running out of places to look.

The shame of the first two is - the obvious financial need aside - Hammer's oeuvre is packed with actors who'd have made a respectable Quatermass; I'd have taken Keir for the other two as well if only for neatness. Even if they'd had to have gone with an American I'd have taken the chap from Curse of Frankenstein by preference.

Yeah, so much untapped potential there, Troughton might have been interesting as well (though probably too young during the first two films, and I can't remember if he'd have been doing Who by the time of Pit).

To be fair to Keir, like you say he does the job and there's nothing wrong as such with his performance, it's just not at the same level as Morell.

The frustrating thing about the missing episodes is it's easy to see why they didn't bother to record anything after the first two as the picture really isn't broadcast quality even with modern restortion... but of course we'd have gladly taken the fuzzy picture today.

Going to have to dig out my DVD's on my next week off, only seen the b&w films and the TV version of II the once, so it may be time for a reassessment.

To be fair to the first film (and IIRC much the same applies to the second one) the differences between them and the third one are all basically down to them being made best part of a decade apart, during which time Hammer have turned from a B-Movie company chancing their arm with a BBC adaptation to a relatively slick film studio which knew what it was doing (e.g. realising they didn't need an American star for anything really) that had built up a highly competent set of people on both ends of the camera.

I think Keir mainly suffers from trying to do things different to Morell, which is understandable but brings about the slight hitch that Morell was definitive so he's just moving away from the ideal.

Inside: French gorefest. Gripping, insanely gory and with a couple of surprises on first viewing. Not sure how it would stand up to repeated viewings just because it's strangely harrowing and oppressive without relying on shock/jump value. There's one rather tacky bit with a circuit breaker but aside from that keeps you guessing, and Beatrice Dalle is still looking absolutely smashing, especially considering I think the last thing I saw her in was the very shitty Blackout over a decade ago. Definitely caught Ali MacGraw Disease.

As I was getting a bit HeavyArms I'm just going to feedback on what I've recently watched/am watching that's made an impression.

Wait? What?

My shipment from Amazon came in this week and in that shipment out came the Darksiders: Abomination Vault book and Young Justice season 1. I also got Dollhouse season 1, Revenge season 1, WWE TLC 2012 and How I Met Your Mother season 7.

My shipment from Amazon came in this week and in that shipment out came the Darksiders: Abomination Vault book and Young Justice season 1. I also got Dollhouse season 1, Revenge season 1, WWE TLC 2012 and How I Met Your Mother season 7.

I was falling into the trap of posting lists with no depth whatsoever, completely failing to engage with anyone else on the board.